york rare breeds - entries

monica waltho · Post by **monica waltho** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:37 pm

Seems unfair because yours appear to be only dexter bulls there!

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:45 am

How annoying. We've got the same with our sheep. You can't sell rams at the official sales unless there are so many females per ram for sale as well. So if you're growing your flock like we are and don't want to sell any females for probably five years, you can't sell rams other than privately. In any case, it also means travelling with loads of animals or doing extra trips. Can't understand it myself and they've lost my custom as well.

Edited By Broomcroft on 1286005594

Louisa Gidney · Post by **Louisa Gidney** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:15 am

With respect, a few years ago the York sale was swamped by Dexter males. There were insufficient buyers so most were withdrawn. The auctioneers also got rather brassed off with the unrealistically high reserves that were placed on some bulls too. I think they are trying to weed out the time wasters.

Louisa Gidney · Post by **Louisa Gidney** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:16 pm

Though it does seem very wrong to accept the entries and list them in the catalogue before deciding not to accept them!

monica waltho · Post by **monica waltho** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:23 pm

what was trade like?

Louisa Gidney · Post by **Louisa Gidney** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 1:55 pm

The heifer in front of mine made 280gns. My girls made 280, 220, 180gns.
Two bulling Shetland heifers were passed out at 250gns. That's all I saw as I had to dash off to the sheep lines, where Manx Loaghtan and Hebridean ewelambs were fetching about 50gns.
Lisa Bell & Carolann Raybould were there, so might be worth putting out an enquiry as to whether they marked prices in their catalogues.

pudser · Post by **pudser** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 4:20 pm

Hi,

I am always amazed what poor prices cattle make at sales in comparison to the prices asked for in advertisements on this website.Compare the prices at york with what dextersfor sale and it makes no sense to me.

i also think that killing heifers seem to be worth more than average breeding stock .Maybe more heifers should be killed rather than selling them for small money.

P

bjreroberts · Post by **bjreroberts** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 4:56 pm

Intrestingly I came across a farm shop website yesterday, where they claim to only sell meat from heiffers through their shop as they claim they provide the best eating quality.

Is there any substance tto such a claim?

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:07 pm

pudser wrote:Hi,

I am always amazed what poor prices cattle make at sales in comparison to the prices asked for in advertisements on this website. Compare the prices at york with what dextersfor sale and it makes no sense to me.

i also think that killing heifers seem to be worth more than average breeding stock .Maybe more heifers should be killed rather than selling them for small money.

P

I just sent two average heifers to a butcher, got just short of £600 each net of costs. It doesn't make sense. Breeding stock should be more not less. I took some nice 2nd calvers to market this year, 3-4 years old, got top price of the day for both of them, 400 and 450 gns without a calf at foot. It may have been top prices of the day, but they were still worth more than that!

Most were going for 300-350gns, in calf, with a grown calf at foot as well!!! The calf is worth most of that figure by itself.

There are butchers who only want heifers. Can't comment on the difference because we've only ever put steers in our freezer except last time, we've put two heifers in but they're not very good I think because the new abattoir we tried probably didn't hang them properly, don't know, it's just not the same.

Edited By Broomcroft on 1286381420

SteveM · Post by **SteveM** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 7:49 pm

You have to remember that the prices asked for cattle in adverts on this or any other site reflect what the owner values the animal at, and that anyone enquiring about the animal is not ruling out paying that price, but there is no way to find out if a sale at that value was achieved.

At auction the price of an animal reflects the price the underbidder was prepared to pay.

Attended the Melton Mowbray, Carlisle and York auctions this year and in general the better quality animals had more interest, and achieved higher prices, oftens selling to the same buyers.

Hence prices are governed by the quantity and quality of entries, and the needs and pockets of the buyers.

Selling for beef however will have a base price governed by the commercial beef market.

I would think that at all three auctions several of the heifer entries will have been bought by the beef trade.